Tonights game vs Bath

[fleabane]

The least worst team won!

What a shambles.....

Only Lucas, 36 and Matt Smith of the backs came out of it with any credit, Brett, Woods and Green best of the scrum.

Awful.

[loopylass]

I know, the game was awful. I considered leaving after the first half as not only was the scoring low but the quality of the game was far from what we can achieve. Very disappointing.

[Tiger_in_Birmingham]

The least worst team won!

What a shambles.....

Only Lucas, 36 and Matt Smith of the backs came out of it with any credit, Brett, Woods and Green best of the scrum.

Awful.

Lucas was phenomenal - met his critics both under the high ball and making tackles on big men. Every time he had ball in hand he wanted to run unless kicking was necessary, and I though his up and unders were all well weighted.

Billy was awesome too - great individual try, good lines and half breaks a couple of times. Tried to force the final pass early on rather than retaining possession.

Smith showed a lot more nouse - several times he was given the ball with several men to beat and came inside to set up second phase ball rather than go into touch. Wonderful chip over to set up Billy's first try, an awkward bounce almost undid it though

Green stood out in the forwards but not Pienaar?

I thought Green was absent for most of the game - a stark contrast to when he played at the beginning of the season.

I thought Julian lasted the 80 minutes well.

Alex appeared to get involved more and went looking for the ball, he even made a good offload to Lucas who in turn offloaded to Matt Smith to chip through for Billy's try

Harry didn't look match fit - I'd even go so far as to say he was hesitant a couple of times going into contact and looking at the loose ball and on the opposite wing rather than getting the ball out of the ruck a couple of times.

Vesty made a couple of good breaks but far too many times he tried and failed.

[Crivvens]

The highlight for me was during half time when they played "You're Sixteen, You're Beautiful And You're Mine" followed by "Sweet Little Sixteen" on the tannoy.


Made me chuckle.

Anyway, scrappy match, but it was always likely to be with the combinations we fielded. I'd imagine that team has never played together before so it was always gonna be disjointed. That said, the best we could have hoped for was a 5 point haul, and that's what we got so it can't have been that bad.

[Daveyboy]

A bonus point victory?

With a severely depleted side?

What more do you people want?

[Pete]

I enjoyed the match. Twelvetrees certainly had dancing feet for his second try - most unlike Tigers' normal centres. I also enjoyed the imaginative leap of faith when the ball was kicked across the field straight into Tuilagi's hands (and inevitably straight out again).

But we won easily enough in the end with a bonus point, with several players returning from injury and several more youngsters in the team.

[smalldell]

Get real.....both teams unfamilar with each other.

For us a lot of guys who needed game time:-

Smith
Ellis
Twelevetrees
Vesty
Amorosino

What do you expect........they got game time and will get more next week and we got a win.......We need a lot of these guys during the 6 Nations so it is important they are match hardened and these games will do that......

[wolves tigger]

if we have to rely on these players comming back for the 6n we wont be top for long , sorry poor show ,duffy dont think he will last , when tom went on went looking for the ball and found it Alex thought looked a bit out of sorts his crash bang wallop approach seems to have gone ..... and he does not seem to get through as he used too . Also the number 9s can now bring him down Stand up a bit longer alex and pump those huge legs of your mate

[westwinds31]

Crivvens...I laughed out loud !!

[drc_007]

We lost 6 out of 9 line-outs on our own throw, by the end they were not kicking penalties to touch because they could not be sure of retaining possession. It is easy to blame the hooker, but a professional side ought to be able to win the majority of their own line-outs.

[Purebob]

We lost 6 out of 9 line-outs on our own throw, by the end they were not kicking penalties to touch because they could not be sure of retaining possession. It is easy to blame the hooker, but a professional side ought to be able to win the majority of their own line-outs.

That was the terrible bit. The scrum performed pretty well second half, better when Youngs came on for Duffey. Unusually it was Harry not doing much with the quality ball :( Doesn't bode well.

Amorosino was immense, he was completely confident under high ball even under two or three hard chargers looming, and he almost always did something attacking with ball in hand. Dispelled almost all my doubts about the lad. well done Luke !

36 had a decent game, and I think with a flatter line he'd break the gain line more often.

Finally I think the rest of the prem teams have caught up with Alesana's "monster truck" game now. Most teams are used to stalling had chargers so unfortunately his bets tool is less effective than it was.

His ball fluffs in hand were pretty poor though.

A good night, with a few good lads getting some pitch time. 6/10

[Richard]

We lost 6 out of 9 line-outs on our own throw, by the end they were not kicking penalties to touch because they could not be sure of retaining possession. It is easy to blame the hooker, but a professional side ought to be able to win the majority of their own line-outs.

That was the terrible bit. The scrum performed pretty well second half, better when Youngs came on for Duffey. Unusually it was Harry not doing much with the quality ball :( Doesn't bode well.

Amorosino was immense, he was completely confident under high ball even under two or three hard chargers looming, and he almost always did something attacking with ball in hand. Dispelled almost all my doubts about the lad. well done Luke !

36 had a decent game, and I think with a flatter line he'd break the gain line more often.

Finally I think the rest of the prem teams have caught up with Alesana's "monster truck" game now. Most teams are used to stalling had chargers so unfortunately his bets tool is less effective than it was.

His ball fluffs in hand were pretty poor though.

A good night, with a few good lads getting some pitch time. 6/10

What game were you at?
Vesty was useless, like Mauger. Everytime Vesty tried something it was either a kick (a bad one at that) or he tried to do things alone, and the rest of the team had to come to the rescue. He has lost his confidence from last year. Compare him to '36' '36' has had about the same game time and had a load more confidence than Vesty.
Tuilagi was a waste of space and so was Matt Smith. It improved when Johne Murphy came on.
Tigers showed limited ambition, with all the bad kicks, bad passing, knock ons. The players need to start training with the ball...
Ambrosia and 36 stood out for me and seemed to have the ambition that the others were lacking.

[wadam]

I worry about ellis on that showing - I know he is just back from injury (again) but he looks like his confidence has gone along with his pace. 2nd half he broke from a scrum and there was a large gap for him to go throuhg but he would not take it, pre injury he would have been through that.

His pass was poor and he hesitated at the base of the ruck to much - can we send him somewhere to get game time?

I thought Mauger was poor tonight, Alex was trying but maybe he needs to vary his game. 36 did ok and took his tries well, vesty looked rusty (to be expected) and the rest were average at best.

Tom Youngs played well when he came on, better than Duffey. Lineout went wrong all night, Kay seemed to be organising it..

[drc_007]

I worry about ellis on that showing - I know he is just back from injury (again) but he looks like his confidence has gone along with his pace. 2nd half he broke from a scrum and there was a large gap for him to go throuhg but he would not take it, pre injury he would have been through that.

I see Ben Youngs has been told to report to the England squad after playing for Saxons, sounds like Harry Ellis will not be playing in this 6N.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyu ... axons.html

[bluntiger]

We fail to adapt quickly enough in game situations.

It was my impression in the first half that we believed we could beat them up front but it was clear they were competing well with our pack but we continued with that approach rather than goint to plan 'B' when it was clear it was not working.

Also, with Vesty's kicking so poor (place kicking and out of hand) it still took us until the 65th minute for 36 to take a kick.

I thought 36 and Amorisino were the stand-out performances.